A multi-institutional, multinational study of programming concepts using card sort data

Sanders, Kate; Fincher, Sally; Bouvier, Dennis; Lewandowski, Gary; Morrison, Briana B.; Murphy, Laurie; Petre, Marian; Richards, Brad; Tenenberg, Josh; Thomas, Lynda; Anderson, R. J.; Anderson, Robert L.; Fitzgerald, Sue; Gutschow, Alicia; Haller, Susan; Lister, Raymond; McCauley, Renée; McTaggart, J. Ellis; Prasad, Christine; Scott, Terry; Shinners-Kennedy, Dermot; Westbrook, Suzanne; Zander, Carol

doi:10.1111/j.1468-0394.2005.00303.x

Cited by 22 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…This work builds on the study reported in Sanders et al [19] and Petre et al [15](the "bootstrapping study"). In that study, participants were given twenty-six cards, each of which contained the name of a programming concept (listed in Table 1).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Rugg and McGeorge's [17] tutorial on eliciting knowledge through card sorts specifically includes the categories "other" "not sure" and "not applicable" as ragbag and mentions "don't know", "not sure" and "not applicable" in their recommended instructions to participants. Other than studies specifically referencing Rugg and McGeorge ([14,19,16]), few other studies even mention these categories. None give any analysis of the concepts contained in these categories.…”

Section: Ragbag Categoriesmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Since the publication of[19], four students, inadvertently omitted, have been added back into the data. This is a minor change that does not affect the overall results.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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What novice programmers don't know

Lewandowski

Gutschow

McCartney

et al. 2005

Proceedings of the 2005 International Workshop on Computing Education Research - ICER '05

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Novice programmer knowledge contains a mixture of wellformed, in-transition and muddled conceptual structures. In this paper we describe an analysis of the in-transition and muddled items that are not fully integrated into the novices' cognitive structures. When participants were asked to perform card sorts of programming concepts into categories, 23% of their categories were "ragbags": categories with names such as "don't know," "not sure," or "not applicable" that indicate that the students have little or no knowledge of the concepts placed in those categories.In this study, we find that there are distinct differences in the uses of the ragbags. In particular, we find that terms considered more abstract tend to be placed into Don't Know and Not Sure ragbags more often than concrete terms; and students categorized as low performers tend to use Not Sure far more often than high performers but Don't Know and Not Applicable less often. We also find evidence that the meaningfulness of a concept is likely to be related to the vocabulary used in the classroom, suggesting that students may assimilate abstract concepts into their conceptual structures more quickly if one uses the terms more frequently.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Ragbag Categoriesmentioning

confidence: 98%

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What novice programmers don't know

Lewandowski

Gutschow

McCartney

et al. 2005

Proceedings of the 2005 International Workshop on Computing Education Research - ICER '05

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show abstract

“…The initial statistical analyses of the study data (reported in [20]) were insufficient to answer the study questions. It was only the subsequent qualitative analysis performed by the South Carolina group, using data collected via the same types of instruments as the original Bootstrap studybut fewer researchers interacting over an extended period of time, both face-to-face and via email-that provided the richer kinds of data needed to answer the original study's questions.…”

Section: Choice Of Analysis Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-institutional, multi-national studies in CSEd Research

Fincher

Lister

Clear

et al. 2005

Proceedings of the 2005 International Workshop on Computing Education Research - ICER '05

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One indication of the maturation of Computer Science Education as a research-based discipline is the recent emergence of several largescale studies spanning multiple institutions. This paper examines a "family" of these multi-institutional, multi-national studies, detailing core elements and points of difference in both study design and the organization of the research team, and highlighting the costs and benefits associated with the different approaches.

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“…The range and breadth of the countries and cultures (R1, toprecruiting schools, teaching-oriented institutions, primarily [18][19][20][21][22] year olds, and returning students, etc.) represented in the participating institutions make the results of these works particularly compelling.…”

Section: Population Studiedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-Institutional Computer Science Education Research: A Review of Recent Studies of Novice Understanding

Simon

Lister

Fincher

2006

Proceedings. Frontiers in Education. 36th Annual Conference

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There has been a recent proliferation of multinational, multi-institutional computer science education research exploring issues surrounding novice computer science student understanding. The large numbers of students studied in these efforts and their breadth in terms of student background (both technically and culturally) has led to significant interest in the work. In this paper, we summarize each study, identifying the populations studied, the types of data collected, the analyses performed and review the primary results. We also report on current ongoing work related to and derived from these efforts.

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A multi-institutional, multinational study of programming concepts using card sort data

Abstract: This paper presents a case study of the use of a repeated single-criterion card sort with an unusually large, diverse participant group. The study, whose goal was to elicit novice programmers' knowledge of programming concepts, involved over

Cited by 22 publications

References 8 publications

What novice programmers don't know

What novice programmers don't know

Multi-institutional, multi-national studies in CSEd Research

Multi-Institutional Computer Science Education Research: A Review of Recent Studies of Novice Understanding

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